Here is something about large undertakings that I hold to be true:
every big project starts with only a little nucleus that snowballed. This
entry was that nucleus --
Roadgap's very first entry photographed was this one, borne out
of the sudden realization that some of the highways I frequently used were
being blotted out right before my eyes. From that, I went out with my
trusty Olympus and decided to freeze in photography what was left for
posterity before Caltrans whisked it away for good.

On roadtrips north, I noticed the humble little CA 30 freeway in San
Bernardino branch off from I-215 towards the ski resorts, and noted it
grow over the years as we would pass through the area. In the late 1990s,
one day going north on the I-15, I was pleased to note that
it was growing to the west in the form of a full freeway.
Little did I know, of course, that this was
actually CA 30's coffin, being built in broad daylight -- today's CA 210,
and tomorrow's Interstate 210.

What I was unaware of, being only a growing road-dweeb, was that CA 30 had
in fact already ceased to be, deleted as a route in 1998 and what was
left transferred to Route 210. (In those days, I-210 still went down and
met I-10 at the Kellogg Interchange, proceeding south of there to become
CA 57.) This was a most unfortunate end to a route with a moderately
long history. Although not numbered in the field until 1952,
its alignment was state road dating
back to the 1930s (the Legislative Route
Numbers it would run on were defined in 1933 [LRN 190, to Highland/Redlands],
and 1937 [LRN 207, the remaining portion]).
At its greatest extent, CA 30 ran from Glendora-San Dimas at the
site of the present-day I-210/CA 210/CA 57 junction, to Highland along a
surface routing (but primarily Base Line Rd, 19th St and Highland Ave), up to
CA 18 in Running Springs west of Big Bear Lake along what is now CA 330,
co-routed with CA 18
to the west edge of the lake, and then around the south side of the lake
itself to terminate near CA 18 (again) and CA 38. This would change with the
Great
Renumbering, which cut CA 30 down to what is now the CA 330/CA 18 junction
in Running Springs and gave its old routing along Big Bear Lake to CA
18, with CA 38 taking CA 18's leftovers.

This set in motion the ultimate goal for CA 30: conversion to a full
freeway bypass to allow routing around San Bernardino. This bypass was
intended to extend all the way to San Dimas, and to that end, a stub
interchange and partial freeway alignment to Foothill Blvd was created with
the new I-210 in 1970 -- nearly simultaneously with construction of a full
freeway from US 395/(then)I-15
to Highland Avenue in eastern San Bernardino,
completed by 1971. To facilitate its reincarnation as a bypass, the routing
was altered again in 1972: old Route 106 running between Redlands and
CA 30 along Orange St and Boulder Ave was scrapped and given to CA 30,
although it would remain signed for at least a couple years afterwards;
this freed up the old road along City Creek, which was given to new CA 330.
To connect CA 30 to the I-10, the fragment of Orange St between I-10
and CA 30 which was originally CA 38 was also given to CA 30. Freeway
CA 30 was then built up from I-10 to 5th Street by 1984, lengthened
further west on a temporary alignment over I-215 to Highland Avenue in
Muscoy in 1989, and then the last piece of freeway routing between 5th
Street and Highland Avenue finished in 1992.
That still left the remaining non-freeway portions of CA 30 (Highland
Avenue, 19th St, etc.) between the stub at I-210 and the new freeway just
west of I-215, and this portion's upgrade to freeway was the construction
I witnessed
at intervals during the mid 1990s. It was even signed CA 30 at its junction
with I-15; although the advance signage was greened out, some of it was blown
off by high winds, revealing the new route.

Whatever the reason, however, CA 30 was a route marked for destruction. To
be fair, its presence as a freeway was illogical as there was no need for
I-210 to artificially terminate early. CA 57 could easily extend north to
pick up the vacated alignment if I-210 were swung over to make one long
continuous and singly numbered route between I-10 in Redlands, which it
would still come off
from and not rankle any numbering sensibilities, all the way along its
previous alignment to Sylmar and the Newhall Pass. (Presumably this new
route would be submitted for signage entirely with an I-210 shield when
completed to Interstate standards.) This reason seems most
likely, although logic has never been the strong suit of the California
state legislature. No matter why they did it, however, one day I drove by
and found new CA 210 shields pasted over the old CA 30 advance signage on
I-15. Sure enough, all the CA 30 shields were gone. Where CA 30 lurked on
overhead signage, it had been torn off and replaced with ill-fitting CA 210
shields of the same configuration. CA 210 plates were put up on signs, and
freeway entrance assemblies were all redone. Realizing I'd better get cracking
as a route I had known for years was disappearing before my eyes, I hit the
asphalt to get it all down on flash media.

Because this is truly meant to be a snapshot in time exhibit, I have not
attempted to capture the fullest extent of its historical routing, especially
since CA 330 and CA 18 preserve that so well. Rather, I have focused on its
routing as it was before its deletion, along with the history of construction
of the alignment for its final routing. Since this was an active construction
zone at that time,
many of the photographs, particularly in San Bernardino, depict signage
and/or exit configurations that have been changed or destroyed. Unfortunately,
much of the Highland Avenue alignment west of I-215 I was unable to capture
before its conversion to freeway and then CA 210; also, some of the photos in
this exhibit are substandard because I did not get to redo them before the
signs or structures they depicted were changed, razed or closed off.
Nevertheless, I have
managed to get the entirety of the CA 30 freeway, as well as some of its
routing in eastern Los Angeles county and
western San Bernardino county before obliteration by CA 210,
which is still very well marked with postmiles.

On 24 July 2007, the 210 freeway completely opened all the way from
Glendora-San Dimas to Redlands. Now that most of the signage has come down,
in probably a couple more years this will
be the only record that CA 30 even existed.

Photographed December 2004, with additional photographs May 2005, January 2007,
August 2007 and November 2008. In multiple parts.

Crosstown Fwy (CA 210 Future Interstate 210,
Old CA 30)

Most residents of urban San Bernardino county will remember CA 30 as the
Crosstown Freeway, so named because it goes "across town" (in this case,
from Redlands through Highland to downtown San Bernardino and Muscoy). The
Crosstown Fwy proper runs between Interstate 10 in Redlands and Interstate
215 in San Bernardino, so for this first part of our photoessay we start from
its southeastern end at I-10 and this first advance signage.

Approaching the junction. The "skeleton" gantry is where the old Alabama St
signage used to hang and I don't know why Caltrans hasn't taken it down.
Notice that CA 30 was also signed "TO CA 330" which, as we discussed in the
blurb above, was in fact its former routing to Big Bear Lake.

Exit for 5th Street. We'll be coming back to this in Part
2. This was the end of the 1984 freeway. The section between Highland
Avenue and this point was the last part of the CA 30 freeway to be completed
(as CA 30), in 1992.

The postmiles for CA 330 do not start at zero, but rather officially at
PM R28.7, just shy/south of
the point at which CA 30 historically diverged up City Creek
Rd towards Running Springs and the last holdover remembering CA 30's old
routing through Big Bear. There isn't a visible postmile
right at the gore point, but here is PM 29.0 on NB CA 330,
just before the one and only exit at Highland Avenue. We'll
see the interchange itself in Part 2 since
it has more relevance to our old CA 30 routing than the modern
freeway. For now, we head back south.

As a point of comparison, the southern junction of CA 330 (there is no
END CA 330 sign as of this writing that I could find) adroitly shows the two
equally unsatisfactory ways Caltrans replaced the CA 30 shields. On the EB
overhead, the button copy CA 30 was replaced by a retroflective and obviously
out-of-place CA 210. The WB overhead corrects the disparity by fully replacing
the panel (instead of greenouting San Bernardino and the CA 30 shield), but
the replacement panel is smaller (because "Pasadena" is shorter)
and the backing struts on the gantry which were sized for the old sign now
stick out on both sides.

When the CA 210 shields first started appearing, these were the very first
(one shield in each direction), right here, in San Bernardino proper. However,
you can still see (faintly) that the postmile in the background at that time
still read CA 30 also.

Separation, along Waterman Avenue. We'll come
back to CA 18 in a moment. For now, we continue to I-215 as the dividing
line between the Riverside Freeway and the Barstow Freeway. West of here, CA 30
hunkers into a viaduct before crossing the Riverside/Barstow Fwys.

Just for fun, here is how this interchange looks now. Since CA 210 is the
"preferred" through route to Los Angeles now from this point, rather than
taking I-215 to I-10 west, "Los Angeles" was stripped from the overhead
sign (and if you look closely, you can see the glue damage). On the pullthru
overhead for CA 30 CA 210, a simple greenout replaces the shield and
the control city, in this case with the wrong FHWA Series font and a
misproportioned CA 210 shield. Anyway, we exit onto the I-215 exit ...

... except that it isn't, in fact, Interstate 215 or CA 30: it is a
completely different highway, CA 259. This is its final postmile, R1.51.

Why would we have such a short stub route here?
To see CA 259's role, let's examine this map from 1969, which not only
shows CA 30's state in those days
(and CA 106's, which we'll get to in Part 2)
but also the future plans for CA 18 and CA 30.
On this map CA 30's proposed freeway
routing was from the west, over the I-15/US 395
(modern I-215) freeway, along the stub we saw which here is signed CA 18,
and then as freeway to City Creek Rd (modern CA 330).
For its part, CA 18 is supposed to follow a freeway alignment from the
switchbacks on north Waterman Ave, down near Harrison St, crossing CA 30 and
proceeding more or less between Waterman and Tippecanoe Avenues to I-10.
So why is there this little stub between Waterman Ave and I-15/US 395
signed CA 18 when it's not even part of the future plans?

The answer is, it's not CA 18 at all -- it's a totally different route number,
built as a connecting piece in 1968 apparently to allow CA 18 to have a freeway
connection from US 395. In those days, CA 18 was the more prominent route than
CA 30, having at one time gone as far south as Long Beach, and was even routed
along the US 395 freeway (along with I-15 and
US 91) on what is now I-215 prior to the
Great Renumbering,
so giving it a direct freeway connector made sense pending
its own conversion into freeway. When the
"I-15" (I-215) to Highland Avenue section of the CA 30 was completed, it
incorporated CA 259 and thus CA 259 was
then cosigned CA 18 and CA 30, although it was still neither one. CA 259 always
had its own route number, even though it didn't use it, because it was never
intended to be permanently part of either highway's routing. When the freeway
incarnations of CA 18 and
CA 30 were finished, CA 259 would no longer be necessary -- but CA 18 never
did get finished. Although Route 259 existed in legislation as early as 1965,
it apparently wasn't applied to an alignment until the freeway was completed.

Despite that, until 2007, CA 259 remained an anonymous highway, ratted out only
on postmiles and call boxes; there were no CA 259 shields until then. Here
we pass
advance signage for Highland Avenue (again, old CA 30), one of the two
exits on SB CA 259 between CA 30 CA 210 and I-215.

"Mountain Resorts" was the ubiquitous control city for CA 18 and CA 30, and
in some places still is. We get back on the highway southbound (i.e., turn
right). We'll come back to this in the beginning of Part 2.
The overhead, as of 3/2010, is still up, but not the CA 30 shield at right.
[210 shields have since been pasted over.]

Approaching Interstate 215 at PM 0.14. This is an awkward left merge which
will probably be reconfigured in the next decade as I-215 is finally
improved after years of substandard service. I talk about the Interstate 215
upgrades in Old Highway 395 Part 17, for
this is basically the US 91/US 395 freeway in essentially its original form.

The left exit to Base Line will also likely be demolished as part of those
upgrades, shooting off the lanes at just the last minute before they join
the Interstate. [It was, in the 2014 upgrade. There is now an "exit 45"
joining the new Baseline exit from I-215 south.]

If we loop around and come back up north, we get to these signs which went up
in 2002; I wish I had some pictures of the old signs, which had a lot of
tantalizing greenout. Even on these signs there is no sign of CA 259, and
although the CA 30 shields have of course been covered over with CA 210
shields, there is no "CA 259 TO CA 210" or such nonsense anywhere.
[On the new 2014 overheads, it is now signed "TO 210 EAST."]

Then, a single pair of CA 259s turned up, one here, and one before the Highland
Avenue exit on the other side (which, for dramatic effect, I skipped when we
were heading southbound -- so just trust me on that).

[Subsequently this sign disappeared again in 2009. Reassurance
shields appear with "TO 210 EAST" after the 2014 reconstruction of the southern
interchange.]

which I have reproduced here in all its button copy glory goodness. Notice
that the sign talks about "ROUTE 18 30 FREEWAY" and "ROUTE 18 30 BUSINESS"
(and is undoubtedly marked for death). The ROUTE 18 FREEWAY signage is, of
course, the holdover from the CA 18 freeway plans we talked about above.
BUSINESS CA 18 and BUSINESS CA 30 still survive and are still signed. That,
too, is in Part 2. [Since this picture was taken,
this sign finally disappeared for good in 2010.]

This is the Highland Avenue exit from the east on westbound Highland Ave,
this time. The onramp we got on before has both I-10 and I-215 signage, because
I-10 was the through freeway route for Los Angeles back then. The CA 30 shield
here, as of this writing, is still up. It does not, and never did, say CA 259.
[As of 3/2010, the CA 30 sign has been replaced by a CA 210.]

E Street exit. This is where old CITY US 66 went north from Highland Avenue
and split from old CA 18; I have some maps of that in
Old Highway 395 Part 15. After US 66 was
decommissioned in 1964, City US 66 became CA 206 and was later decommissioned
itself in 1991.

To finish the grand loop and the last piece of the old CA 30 freeway in
San Bernardino, we'll exit on Waterman and head back west. In doing so, we
pass the southern end of CA 18 today. This was not its historical end,
of course, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Because CA 18 also has "mileage" south of its visible terminus, just
unconstructed mileage (remember from our map where it was supposed to go),
its postmiles like CA 330's also do not start at zero. Technically the
modern route starts at PM 6.18, but here is a postmile sticker sitting
right behind that CA 18 shield showing PM 6.236.

Until 1989, CA 259 was your only choice; the freeways were directly connected.
In 1989, a connector crossing Interstate 215 was constructed when the idea
of extending the CA 30 freeway all the way to San Dimas finally picked up steam
after gestating for the better part of two decades. When this picture was
taken in 2007,
late in the dying days, the CA 210 State Street exit signage was already
up; compare it with this virgin
view from 2004 before the construction.

In fact, it wasn't actually part of "future" CA 30 at all, and now we can
prove it. If we approached it from the west heading EB Highland (you can't
do this now, it's obliterated) and got on the onramp there ...

... we would come to this point and this unique sign assembly showing
the last bannered TEMPORARY highway in the state, Temporary Route 30.
The reason why this is significant is this was the last Temporary banner to
survive anywhere in California. Today, when California wants to mark
temporary alignment for relocation to another future alignment, it uses
special postmiles with a T endorsement (we'll look at that in Part 2), but regular shields otherwise. Not so back then,
where the TEMPORARY banner was erected to clearly warn motorists that this
stub was marked for destruction.

As with many such bureaucratic warnings, the impending doom of Temporary
CA 30 was posted for years. In 2004, when this picture
was taken, there was still no trace of CA 210, even though CA 30 had already
legislatively ceased to exist.

In 2007, CA 30 was still signed on the onramp (though no Temporary banner, and
in fact there never was one on the ramp assemblies), even though the future
highway is clearly visible in the form of the almost finished overpass.

... and Temporary CA 30, true to its name, was paved over, with only
the I-215 overpass surviving as part of the new CA 210. This is the way
it looks today and there is no access to CA 210 directly from this point
anymore.

I am overjoyed to report, however, that thanks to Joe Nelson at the San
Bernardino Sun, and Cheryl Donahue at SANBAG, California's last temporary
route survives ... in my workshop. Yes, the shield and the banner are there
and intact, if crushed; I just need to finish restoring it for display, which
I am trying to do very carefully to avoid stressing the metal any further.

Why do I make
so much fuss over CA 30T? Well, simply, it's the last relic of Southern
California's bygone age of highway expansion. Standing there for the better
part of two decades, it symbolized a public works age which is today forgotten
under the headliner haze of environmental impact statements and astroturfed
phony community squawking. The modern CA 210 will almost certainly be the last
significant new highway project Southern California will see for probably
the next half-century.

However, there was never access to Temporary CA 30 from northbound
I-215, even when it existed. In fact, there is still no access to its
present incarnation as CA 210 and Caltrans' fix for this is still in the
planning stages, despite signed as starting in
2009 (likely a long time later, given this state's severe
budget woes). Instead,
I-215 simply had an exit directly onto Highland Avenue, which U-turns around
onto Highland.

This exit is still in use, this time for CA 210; the quaint old angular
shield outline was stripped off and replaced with a CA 210 coverplate.
It will cease to be the official CA 210 WB access from I-215 when the full
interchange is constructed, but a better alternative is to go up to University
Parkway and loop around on south I-215 to west CA 210, avoiding a number of
traffic lights and the Highway Patrol substation.

Approaching the old stub of Temporary CA 30. You'll notice that we haven't
gotten anywhere near CA 210, even after several blocks. That's why I think
the aforementioned officially signed alternate route is dreadfully
inefficient.

Today Highland Avenue curves gently over the highway in a reconstructed
bridge to connect and terminate at Riverside Avenue, with the remainder of
its old alignment mostly buried beneath the CA 210 freeway (more in
Part 3). This postmile,
which still survives, is the final obvious trace of CA 30 on this
segment as we leave the San Bernardino city limits for points east.

Since we're talking about surface street alignments, however, this gives us
the perfect segue to ...